


Home is a House in Lothering

by tesselations



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Character Study, Hawke Family Feels, Siblings, Too Many Twins, What-If, complicated babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 00:41:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4767089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tesselations/pseuds/tesselations
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(a sort-of character study, sort-of exploration of the hawke family before dragon age II, a sort-of "what if" marian and garrett were twins in the same universe).</p><p>“Marian,” he whispers, just when they both think the other is asleep, “Don’t ever let me become an abomination. Please. Just… just kill me first if you have to.” </p><p>Marian rolls over, puts her head on his chest, and swears to the Maker that if she ever has to kill Garrett, she’ll kill herself too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home is a House in Lothering

One morning, Malcolm wakes up in the morning next to his wife—his wife, and isn’t that marvelous and strange—and knows. He can feel the pull when he puts his head on her abdomen, a hum that feels like the worn, fade-touched velvet that lines the collar of his robes.

Leandra has no idea. She wakes slowly, lazily, and kisses him hungrily like she does every morning. She lounges like a cat as he makes breakfast slowly and thoughtfully. Malcolm doesn’t know how to tell her. 

When he sits down on the tiny, creaky bed next to her, his forehead creased in contemplation, she knows something is off. But his smile is so, so warm when he says, “Congratulations love. We’re going to be parents.”

-

Leandra grows heavy quickly. She curses Malcolm daily for the weight on her back, her hips, but he rubs her feet and she loves him. She hopes she can love this baby as much.

“I’m huge,” she moans, feet propped up on a pillow like they’ve been for the last three hours. Malcolm looks worried, but the hedge-witch he sneaks Leandra to just smiles mischievously. 

“I’m surprised you couldn’t tell,” she teases, her eyes flickering to the walking stick in his hand. “She’s having twins.” 

-

Garrett and Marian come out of the womb one after another, following each other the way they will for the next twenty-five years. They’re both loud, healthy babies, and their screams echo off the cottage walls. Leandra is flushed with exertion. 

“How are they?” she asks, her voice hoarse. Malcolm turns to her, so proud he can barely speak.

“Beautiful.” 

\- 

For the first seven years of their lives, Marian and Garrett look like identical twins . If it weren’t for Leandra’s insistence on keeping Marian’s hair long, they would be near impossible to tell apart. But Leandra and Malcolm know their children well, and it’s the little things that set them apart. Marian has more of a temper. Garrett is more of a people-pleaser.

Marian and Garrett are so close, Leandra thinks, closer than she ever was with Gamlen. There is a pang in her chest sometimes, when she thinks about him. She wants to write home, and can never bring herself to do so. Malcolm carved her a wooden desk, and all she has done is fill it with crumpled up letters. Leandra puts a hand on her stomach, wonders how Marian and Garrett will get along with their younger sibling. When she tells them, Garrett rests his ear against the swell of her abdomen, curious and gentle.

“What will it be like?” He asks, excited and nervous. “When will I see them? Does this mean I might have a brother now?” Leandra smiles a little and strokes his hair. Behind him, Marian scowls.

“What do you need a brother for anyway?” she asks, and stalks off, though Leandra calls after her. She goes missing for the whole evening, and Garrett, unused to being left behind, has a tremendous sulk. 

Malcolm finds her hiding in the chicken coop, and gathers her up in his arms. Feathers surround her, and little tufts of black hair that she sheared off with a pair of Leandra’s scissors, stolen from her dresser, and she snuffles into Malcolm’s shoulder as he carries her back in.

Garrett is waiting in the window, and when Malcolm puts Marian down, he leaps on top of her in delight. 

“Your hair!” He shouts, and they wrestle on the ground, two halves of a whole. 

Leandra is less delighted.

“Your hair! Marian what have you done?” she scolds, and clicks her tongue, feeling very old and very frustrated. She pulls Marian away and stares in disgust at the choppy, haircut Marian had inflicted on herself. Marian glares back. 

“I cut it all off,” she says bluntly. 

“You look like a boy. Oh Malcolm, her hair was so lovely…” she complained. Marian wriggles away to continue wrestling with Garrett, uninterested in Leandra’s distress. Just yesterday, she had looked like a little version of Leandra’s cousin, Revka, with her silky black hair…

“It still is, love,” Malcolm reassures her, a hand on her shoulder. Garrett and Marian lay on the floor panting, shoulders touching, with only the mirrored sweeps of their shaggy bangs to tell them apart.

-

Seven is a big year for them. Marian chops all her hair off, and two months later, Garrett accidentally freezes the stew. 

He is helping Leandra cook. She had wanted Marian, but Marian had wanted to chase the chickens around the garden instead, and Garrett eagerly offered to help stir the stew. He can barely see over the top of it, but he is insistent that he can do it. When Leandra’s back is turned, he accidentally tips the pot over with a shout.

“Mother!” he cries, and Leandra turns as fast as she can, hoping to block the boiling liquid from hitting him, though she knows he is too far away and she is too swollen to move quickly. But what amazes her is the arc of frozen stew that clatters onto the ground with a solid thunk.

Garrett looks so afraid. Leandra drops to her knees and gathers him in her arms, and begins to cry. She is so loud that Garrett begins to cry too, and Marian comes in from outside, covered in feathers, to investigate the commotion. 

“I’m sorry mother,” he whimpers, and Leandra just holds him tighter.

“It’s okay sweetheart, it’s okay,” she mumbles into his hair. She thinks again of her cousin Revka, who had to send her mage child away. She thinks of the grey streaks in Revka’s raven-black hair, and cries harder.

When Malcolm comes home, he finds the three of them around the table, with a pile of sandwiches for dinner instead of stew. Leandra had taught Garrett how to make them with shaking hands. She tells him what happens while they eat, and Malcolm grips the table so hard it scares her.

“We are not sending him away Leandra.” He growls. Leandra shakes her head furiously.

“Never.” she agrees, and holds Garrett tight. She is afraid of what that means.

-

Seven is when Malcolm takes Marian out in the garden and kneels down in front of her. He explains to her that what he does when he lights the fire with a snap of her fingers, what he does when he fixes the fence, is magic. She’s not supposed to talk about it, he tells her. 

“Was Garrett’s soup magic too then?” she asks, too quick by half. Malcolm nods. He gathers his daughter close, and explains to her that from now on, Garrett is in danger. He’s always in danger, from the Templars that tromp down the street on patrol, from the Chantry sisters who preach about the dangers of magic.

Marian had wondered once, why Malcolm never prayed. She supposes she understands, now. 

Seven is when Malcolm tells Marian that Garrett is in danger, from demons and from men, and Marian tightens her little fists and promises, no-one will ever get to Garrett without going through her first. Malcolm looks old and sad. He rubs his beard and kisses the top of her head, and leads her back inside, where she sits next to her brother and holds his hand. 

-  
Leandra grows heavy quickly again. She is older now, though she is loathe to admit it, and weight in her hips and on her back is not as easy to bear. She spends a good deal of time in bed, and Garrett and Marian spend a good deal of time peering in through the crack in her door, trying not to make the hinges squeal. She lets them in, but they inevitably get too restless to let her sleep and she throws them out again, leaving them to pace in front of her room until they decide to go do chores.

Malcolm practices magic with Garrett. He starts small, teaching him how to control the ebb and flow of power inside him, like they did when he was in the circle. He runs Garrett through exercises designed to train his restraint. Malcolm’s greatest fear is that Garrett will be too bold, too obvious, and be dragged away by a Templar, like he was so many years ago. Garrett struggles with the concept of subtlety more than Malcolm would like, leaving scorch marks on the kitchen floor and ice crystals on the picket fence. Sometimes, Malcolm thinks Garrett wants to be seen, wants someone to acknowledge the wonderful things he can do. 

Garrett runs to Marian with every new trick he learns, and she oohs and ahhs but Malcolm knows she is jealous. Leandra tries to teach Marian how to cook and how to garden, things her mother had never taught her— she had believed Leandra should always have a maid around for that, noble ladies weren’t homemakers after all—but Marian listens poorly and cares even less. Leandra tries to imagine her daughter growing up in Kirkwall, with etiquette classes and dance lessons and dresses, but Marian makes holes in her socks so large that Leandra can’t darn them, so it’s probably for the best that she doesn’t wear nice dresses anyway.

Malcolm is less worried when Leandra goes into labor this time. He holds her hand and the midwife yells at the children for getting in the way. At the end of it, everyone is sweaty and anticipatory when the midwife holds out two bundles.

“Twins?” Leandra asks, like she can’t believe it. Malcolm, tired, with one hand numb, just huffs out a laugh. 

“This one’s head is huge,” Marian pipes up, staring at the baby boy with wide-eyes. Garrett grins, and reaches one finger out for his brother to hold. Malcolm watches the baby grip Garrett’s finger tightly, feels the hum of mana in the air around him, and names his second son after the only good Templar he has ever known. 

-

Carver and Bethany grow fast. They learn how to walk and talk quickly. This is important because four years after Carver and Bethany are born, Garrett goes shopping with Malcolm and accidentally sets a shop stall on fire.

Malcolm uses the commotion to sweep his son up—no one suspects him, not yet, he is only eleven years old, still cherub-cheeked and blue eyed—and get them back home as fast as possible. He knows it won’t be long till they come around, people have been reporting the strange happenings around their house to the Templars for ages, and they haven’t gone to the Chantry often enough to alleviate that suspicion. 

Leandra sees Malcolm’s grave face, sees the soot on Garrett’s cheeks, and drops the potato she was peeling. 

“What happened Malcolm?” she asks, though she has a sinking feeling that she knows.  
Malcolm is too busy picking things up, going to saddle the packhorse.

“We have to go,” he says. “It’s not far to Redcliffe.”

-

So they go to Redcliffe. Garrett is afraid of himself now in a way he never was before. He jumps at his own shadow, and Marian hates it. He has nightmares too, that he never had before. She knows because he tells her all about them, when she crawls into his bed at night.

Garrett and Marian tell each other everything. He tells her that he dreamed of a demon that looks like fire, that it frightened him and he ran away. She buries her face in his shoulder, takes a deep breath of his unwashed smell, and tells him to take a bath tomorrow, and then maybe bad dreams won’t be able to find him.

She knows that’s not true, that the dreams he have are because of the Fade. She knows that, but she doesn’t him to worry about it more than he already does. She will never be able to understand his dreams; they are connected to a part of the world she will never visit. But if nothing else, she can distract him. 

“Marian,” he whispers, just when they both think the other is asleep, “Don’t ever let me become an abomination. Please. Just… just kill me first if you have to.” 

Marian rolls over, puts her head on his chest, and swears to the Maker that if she ever has to kill Garrett, she’ll kill herself too.

-

Marian and Garrett tell each other everything. When Marian first finds blood between her legs at age 13, she tells Garrett before she tells Leandra. He is predictably a little grossed out by the idea. It’s a good thing, he tells her, that they don’t share a bed anymore. 

Leandra is nervous when Marian tells her. This is her daughter, her first baby girl, and this world is not good to women, she knows. Marian is predictably surly and snarky about the whole affair, only slightly more snappish to everyone else.

When Garrett is gone from their shared room, she takes all her clothes off and looks in the mirror. It’s hard to tell under the loose tunics and pants she wears, but her breasts have grown and her hips are wider. The face that stares at her in the mirror still looks like Garrett’s though, as much as it looks like hers. They have the same nose, the same high cheekbones and sharp, jutting chin. 

When Leandra opens the door and sees Marian standing in the nude, she gets upset. From then on, Marian and Garrett room separately, Marian with Bethany and Garrett with Carver. It’s not so bad, Bethany is a sound sleeper and she doesn’t snore like Garrett. And she is so much sweeter, constantly wanting to play dolls and dress up with Marian, who begrudges her. Still, some nights, Marian rolls over and presses her ear against the thin wall, straining for any sound of Garrett whimpering in his sleep, dreaming of demons made of fire.

-

“What do demons look like Garrett?” Marian asks idly. They are fifteen and preparing for dinner. Leandra has taken Bethany to the store with her, and Malcolm is showing Carver how to chop wood in the backyard. 

Garrett peels a potato as if it was the most absorbing task he had ever done. He looks at Marian. She doesn’t resemble him so much anymore. Her face is rounder and her lips fuller, the line of her throat longer than his. But she has been steadfast in refusing to grow her hair out again, and Leandra has given up, so at least that’s the same. She’s taller than him, but his shoulders are broadening out and Malcolm assures him that he’ll be hitting his growth spurt soon.

“Well rage demons look like columns of flame, or something molten, “ he starts, and he describes them to her with shivers down his spine. He tells her about pride demons, and demons of sloth, and how desire demons try to take forms that appeal to their prey.

Marian looks curious about that one. She leans back, probably imagining too vividly what her desire demon would look like. Dirty mind that one has, he thinks, with a little bit of pride.

“You ever met a desire demon in your dreams?” she asks. Garrett stares very hard at the potato when he nods. “Well, out with it. What’d she look like?” 

Garrett has half a mind to lie, or not answer. But he’s always told the truth to Marian, even when he’s told the truth to no one else. So he shrugs and tries not to let his voice crack.

“He, actually.” Marian looks at him speculatively. She sighs.

“Bloody shame, that is. I’m much less interested now,” she says, and Garrett grins.  
-

Leandra takes Carver and Bethany to Chantry services regularly. They sit on either side of her, hands folded in their laps. Bethany is silent, absorbed, but Carver can never stop fidgeting. They are unlike as Marian and Garrett are alike, she thinks.

Leandra feels guilty about enjoying the services. She hates herself a little every time she brings her children to a sermon about magic. She hates herself a little when she misses one that isn’t.

But something about bringing Bethany and Carver with her reminds her of home still, of Gamlen’s hand in hers as they practiced the Chant, of the Revered Mother patting her head and slipping a gold coin in the pocket of her dress. The church-goers all fuss over Bethany when she sings for them. Carver refuses to sing, but he follows the younger Templars around like a baby duckling. The flicker of the red candles in a thatched-roof chantry still brings back memories of high stone ceilings, of the ocean just outside the window. 

She feels normal, somehow, when she’s here. Like she’s just a mother, like she’s just greying a little too quickly, like her only problem is that her children are growing a little too fast. 

-

Bethany is ten when she sees Garrett clutching his foot and swearing a blue streak. He curses again and falls back into a kitchen chair when he sees her.

“Sorry Beth, my bad. Got a nail in my foot, Makers balls that hurts, Carver’s probably been mucking about in Father’s toolkit again,” he complains. There’s a streak of red on the floor and on his hand, and Bethany hates the sight of it.

She reaches out to put one hand on his foot and he jerks back,

“Beth, Beth, what are you—fuck.” He stares at his bare foot, where the bleeding has stopped. There’s a pink ragged wound in his foot, but the blood is gone.

“Oh Father’s going to throw a fit,” he groans. 

He was wrong, of course. Malcolm is entirely too pleased that Bethany’s first act of magic is healing. Malcolm himself is awful at it, but he wants her to be good at it, and so he searches for those contraband books from peddlers that discuss simple healing spells and poultices, and makes Garrett and Bethany both practice. Garrett, as could have been predicted, is well and truly awful at it. Malcolm has found that he has an unfortunate affinity for primal, electricity-based magic, and for ice magic—both flashy and rather useless outside of battle, which if Malcolm has his way, Garrett will never have to face. 

At seventeen, Garrett is tall and finally broad, and he looks comical, puffing and sweating over the cut in Carver’s hand, Carver who glares at him the whole time, while Bethany watches quizzically. Malcolm laughs a little, claps a hand on Marian’s shoulder. This, he thinks, is what home is, Leandra watching from the kitchen table as she darns Marian’s trousers, the corners of her eyes creased in laughter. 

-

It’s hard for a family with three mages to live inconspicuously. Someone notices the censored books. Someone else suspects Malcolm’s staff, though it’s not longer the flashy gold one topped with a nude woman it once was (oh how that had made Leandra blush!). 

They move around a lot, all over Fereldan. Once, they go to Denerim but there are too many Templars about. Honnleath doesn’t have enough work. They go to Highever, then leave. Marian and Garrett learned long ago that getting too close to anyone is a guaranteed way to get hurt. They are always leaving, always packing up their bags, saddling up the horses. 

It’s not so bad for Bethany and Carver. They’ve never known anything else. 

The Hawke family spends the next five years moving. They go to Lothering, where the land is cheap enough for them to have enough space to grow vegetables for themselves and raise chicken. Their neighbors are close enough to be friends, far away enough to be safe. They build a house, a home. 

They bury Malcolm there, right in the backyard.  
-

Peaches is in love with Garrett.

Carver knows it, but it doesn’t stop him from hating it. She tells him he’s her best friend. He tells her it’s mutual, tells her that he has told her everything. It’s not completely untrue. He tells her that Malcolm is sick, horribly sick, that Garrett has been busy helping people fix thatched roofs and rebuild their fences because Malcolm cannot work.

She seems sadder about Garrett than she does about Malcolm, but Carver cannot help but want her anyway. Her mouth is red and lush and her eyes are so, so green. 

It’s unfair, he thinks. He knows Garrett has been messing around with the baker’s boy, since he started doing deliveries a month and a half ago. He wants to tell her, but…

Anything that makes people look at Garrett more is something that Carver cannot do. 

-

Malcolm dies in bed, surrounded by his family.

It is not the worst way to go.

-

Leandra refuses to look at Garrett for weeks after Malcolm dies. She locks the door to her room and lies on her bed, and stares at the roof for hours, watching the light shift from one side of the room to the other.

After the first two days, Marian and Garrett have to face the facts. Their mother is not leaving their room for anything less than the Maker, or Malcolm. 

All they eat for the first two days is sandwiches. Garrett makes one for Leandra at every meal, and every meal she takes one look at his face and buries herself in her sheets, leaving the untouched sandwich at the foot of the bed.

Garrett shaved so rarely when Malcolm was sick, and the shadows on his cheeks have grown out, thick and dark. She can’t look at him without seeing Malcolm rubbing his jaw, hearing the rasp of his beard against his palm.

So, she can’t look at him at all.

-

Leandra refuses to leave her room, and Malcolm is gone. But life outside still must go on.

Bethany and Garrett tend to the garden and the chickens and the house. Without Malcolm, they aren’t sure that a spell gone wrong doesn’t mean the end of their family. Carver gets a job running packages for the general goods store, the only job that anyone will give him. He is never home now. Instead, he runs all over Lothering. It gives him something to do, helps put food on the table, and most importantly, allows him to watch the Templars as they come and go. He memorizes their routes, their faces.

One of them offers to teach him how to use a sword. When he comes back, bruised and sweaty and smiling for the first time in months, Garrett asks him why.

The hurt in his eyes when Carver tells him is almost too much, and Carver has to storm out to keep from crying.

-

Marian works at the tavern, serving drinks, and she learns a lot there. Even the smallest town has a seedy underbelly, and Lothering is no different. She hears about who’s illegally storing lyrium in their shed, and who’s got a drinking problem. The local layabouts teach her how to cut a deck just right, and how to cheat at Wicked Grace. From passing mercs, she’s learned how throw darts. One of them, an Antivan with golden eyes, taught her how to use a knife to defend her chastity. 

It’s funny, how soon after that, he tried to relieve her of it.

The greatest lesson this job has taught her is that men, on the whole, are garbage. Not Garrett, of course, or Carver, but that’s different. They’re family. 

Lothering’s workers come in droves in the evenings, when the mines and the shops close. The men are usually polite at first, but the later it gets the louder they are. Marian smiles and flirts for a few extra coins, but the first time one of the Templar boys in training, a skinny little whelp without his armor, touches her ass, she puts him in a headlock.

They should have made her the bouncer for that. Instead, the owner curses at her for insulting her customers.

“You do that one more time, and you’re out a job, understand? I’m giving you slack because of your father, but know your place next time,” he warns her.

Marian waits till his back is turned to spit on the floor.

“Men,” she mumbles. 

Two nights later, the same Templar boy is there. He’s trying to talk to a girl who’s clearly uninterested, and all it takes is a threatening crack of Marian’s knuckles to send him skulking away.

“Not so brave without the armor, is he?” Marian says, perching on the bar stool next to her to take his spot. Her shift is over now, and it’s time for her to have some fun. 

The girl looks suitably impressed. Her name is Elaine. Thirty minutes later, they are in a back alley, Marian’s lips on the fluttering, hummingbird pulse of her throat. She supposes men are useful sometimes, if only in a roundabout way. 

-

Life goes on, until it doesn’t. Rumors of darkspawn turn into appearances of darkspawn, and the King’s army starts recruiting.

It is a long, hot day when Carver comes home with a bag of coins in his hand. He is eighteen now, all the baby fat melted off the planes of his cheekbones, the sharp jut of his jaw. He runs his hand over his jaw nervously; it is as smooth-shaven as Garrett’s is not.

Leandra is cooking dinner tonight, humming quietly. She looks at Carver, at the new breastplate he is wearing, the bag of coins in his hand, and sinks into a chair.

“You can’t be serious,” she says. Carver sits down next to her, and takes her hand.

When Garrett comes in, Leandra turns to him. 

“Garrett, don’t let him do this. Tell him he can’t go,” she pleads, and Garrett doesn’t know what to do. Carver scowls.

“He can’t tell me what to do, Mother,” he snaps, and then softens. “I have to go. Someone has to.” Marian scowls.

“Maybe, if you get your head out of your ass, that hero complex you have will go away. You’re not a fucking warden you know,” she snaps, and stalks back to her room.

Later, after all the fighting is over, Garrett finds her buckling her knives onto her belt. She sits back on the bed, and he kneels in front of her, sliding one of her boots onto her foot, and pulling it up to her leg. He laces them slowly.

“You don’t have to go,” he says.

“Someone has to go with him Garrett,” she says miserably, and kisses the top of his head. “We’re going to go tonight, before Mother can throw a fit.” They stare at each other for what feels like an eternity, mapping the planes of each other’s faces, so unlike each other now.

“Well,” Garrett finally says, “I have heard that ladies love the uniform.” Marian smiles, a crooked, loving thing. She leaves, and for the first time in twenty-five years, Garrett doesn’t follow.


End file.
